Design Indaba - Design Indaba Dialogues

First published by Times Media Books 2014

Times Media Books

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Copyright text Design Indaba 2014

Copyright images individual contributors 2014

Copyright cover artwork Design Indaba 2014

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e-ISBN (ePUB) 978-1-928216-45-2

e-ISBN (Mobi) 978-1-928216-46-9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Contents

Introduction

One remarkable, lesser-known outcome of the annual Design Indaba Festival is the interpersonal relationships that burgeon during this time.

Having great minds in close proximity lends itself to conversations, the tenure and scope of which often proffer the best learnings of the event for those lucky enough to be privy to these electric exchanges.

The purpose of this ebook is to share these fly-on-the-wall insights with a wider audience. Weve paired some of the worlds leading creative minds and left the conversation to its own devices.

Here we present these unfiltered exchanges, whether they took place over Skype or face-to-face.

As a whole, the conversations are a litmus test of the state of design. Recurring themes such as the effect of digitisation and sustainability on design are a sign of contemporary times.

In conversation with personal friends, respected colleagues or fellow creatives, these design luminaries drop their guard to speak frankly and passionately about everything from the weather, travel and family to industrialisation and business.

Questions of working methods, studio size and the ideal client emphasise the often unspoken-about, unglamorous side of design. The ongoing issue of the difference between design and art reveals that existential questioning follows designers right to the heights of their careers. Questions about what the future holds resonate amongst their concerns. Insecurities, unrealised dreams and personal frustrations accented with candid humour and shared memories remind us that our design heroes are human and very real!

In this collection we have gathered a selection of conversations, traditional interviews and Q&As between designers, originally commissioned for Design Indaba magazine (20012011) or its younger online counterpart, designindaba.com . Expect raw and honest opinions from deities of communication design such as the late Massimo Vignelli, Stefan Sagmeister, Peter Saville, Paula Scher and Michael Bierut. Learn about the changing nature of product design from bigwigs like Yves Bhar, Karim Rashid and Hella Jongerius. Uncover the esoteric in explorations on eating design, and the everyday in discussions on workplace design. The series Inside Out, which speaks to South African designers living abroad, comes from Where Its At , a 2012 publication by Design Indaba, guest edited and designed by South African designer and artist Richard Hart, who now also lives and works in New York.

Each of the 22 dialogues in this ebook is brought to life by the spark of brilliance that underlies the genius behind the designers unique approach to his or her work. While not all specifically about these designers creative produce, every story is accompanied by a selection of work that captures the essence of the creative force behind it. Together their words and images tell an extraordinary tale that captures a unique slice of the last decade of design.

We hope you enjoy the experience of listening in on these design dialogues.

To continue tracking the conversation, follow us on Twitter @designindaba or visit our online publication designindaba.com

One on one: Saville raw an intimate chat with the Factory Records art director

1 February 2004

Sean OToole poses a few questions to Peter Saville and these are his pure, raw unedited answers.

Joy Division Substance (1988). Promo poster by Factory Records. Art Direction Peter Saville, photography Trevor Key, typography Brett Wickens.

Joy Division Atmosphere (1988). Promo poster by Factory Records. Art Direction Peter Saville, photography Trevor Key, typography Brett Wickens.

Hes the one that dunnit. Peter Saville . Hes the one that influenced a generation. Including me.

Way back in the new optimism of the 1990s I opened a small clothing store selling skate clothing, brands that captured the mood of the time: FUCT, Label Whore, Blunt, Split. As a business prospect, my little revolutionary broadside wasnt a very bright idea; Pretoria isnt all that interested in rebel consumption. I recall one day having a perplexed debate with my business partner: I want all our posters and flyers to be catalogued just like Factory Records. My colleague just stared blankly back at me. I, however, remained intractable on the point; I wanted to emulate the design cool of Factory Records. I wanted to be just like the mythology.

In an age that eulogises rather predictable gods, DJs, actresses and the like, Peter Saville stands out as something of an anomaly: the graphic designer as rock star. I can only think of Neville Brody as another instance of this rare phenomenon. Neither Vaughan Oliver (of 23 Envelope/4AD Records) nor Malcolm Garrett ever really generated anything near the same volume of hagiographic writing that informs the myth of Peter Saville. And what a legend it is.

But let me reign in the hyperbole for a moment. In an interview with Sleazenation, New Orders Peter Hook offered his own revealingly personal, if rather frank insight into Saville. [Hes] an artist and a piss artist who never turns up on time and makes you months late Wed have the record ready to go and it would be delayed cos of the sleeve. And where was he? He was fuckin walking around Paris with some model looking at perfume bottle shapes, the twat.

What amazes me most about this outburst is the extent to which it feeds the beast, the legend of Peter Saville. And there are many versions of this story: Peter Saville the elegant wastrel, Peter Saville the directionless savant who scuppered a sure thing with Pentagram.

There is a wonderful moment in Michael Winterbottoms 24-Hour Party People , a film that incidentally features a bit part dedicated to Saville. Tony Wilson is in the toilet of the Russel Club. It is a moment of apocryphal storytelling, and Steve Coogan, playing Factory impresario Tony Wilson, pipes in on the voice over. If it comes to choosing between the truth and the myth, he says, he would always choose the myth. It is a telling revelation, one that probably describes how many of us would like to perceive Peter Saville, like some rare, colourful insect pinned under glass. Stuck.

The truth about Peter Saville is a lot more commonplace, and in a way twice as compelling because of that fact. As he reveals in his interview, he is simply a businessman, or more pointedly, an interpreter, someone with the capability to distil contemporary culture into a meaningful visual format. Sometimes, of course, his job has been noted to offer some darkly comical interludes. His sleeve design for New Orders Blue Monday 12-inch single, widely regarded as a classic, lost Factory Records somewhere between 10p and 50p (depending on who you listen to) on every single sold. It also happened to be the biggest selling 12-inch of all time.